


no smile in return

by selinipainter



Series: Until The End [3]
Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: F/M, What Have I Done, where i try to do this wonderful series justice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-02-28 07:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2723084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selinipainter/pseuds/selinipainter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I want to go home, but there is no home left in you.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t,” he says, quietly. He wipes off the red at the corner of her mouth with his sleeve and lifts her up, as if he had done it so many times. (He had.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	no smile in return

**Author's Note:**

> This is by far the longest thing I have ever written. Thank you for reading it in advance! And feedback is definitely appreciated since I tried some new things with this.

There is one version of the tale where Valkyrie never becomes the world breaker, where Ghastly never dies. There is one where Valkyrie remains whole and unbroken; there is one where they all get their happy endings.

But this is reality, this is what happens.

Valkyrie survives, ripped apart in mind and losing her soul by the inch. The things she has seen and the things she has done haunts her, every step of the way. She has her family, safe and alive and whole. Darquesse is gone, her bad mood is dead. And she still has Skulduggery.

But there are things you cannot pick up quite as easily; there are rhythms you cannot lose with just a thought. The reflection, Stephanie is one of those. Stephanie whose life she lives now, she is Valkyrie and Stephanie except there is abrupt parenthesises where Stephanie lived and loved. She can’t quite reconcile these two lives, the one she lived and the one she gave up.

The parenthesises keep piling up.

Valkyrie can never quite seem to fill them. There are things she lost when her mind was ripped apart and shoved back in. She forgets the little things like how her dad forgets socks and pants when leaving the house, how her mum takes eggs on toast only, Alice’s favourite toy.

She forgets and the silences around these moments are not supposed to be here. She knows what she has to do, known it since she nearly lost Skulduggery.

"But, Steph why?" her mum pleads. "You just got back, hun and… and we lost you."

"You didn’t lose me, mum. I just grew up far too early. You lost Steph but not me, not Val. But I need time. And I’ll be back."

She didn’t want to make any more promises, having broken every single one she had ever given her family, all those ones that did matter. To Fergus that she would not involve his daughters in the mayhem (Carol is dead because of her, because of Stephanie but Stephanie is her and this is on her hands), to her parents that she would protect them (Darquesse had _killed_ them), to Alice because she was supposed to be the one protecting Alice from all the bad things.

_I’m the monster, the witch, the demon, monster who murdered alice we all do things in war but I killed Alice killedherandwatchedherdie no morebreath left in her little body monster witch monstermonstermonster_

Her mum gives up, and insists on packing her things. She can give her that.

Dad does not stop her, when has he ever? He only smiles sadly when she tells them about it. Smiles as if he knew it was coming all along and he hands her a cheque. He does not speak about it to her, instead he tells Skulduggery and Saracen all the embarrassing stories he knows about Val when they come over to visit. (It helps her remember all those little things she lost, slowly and surely.)

Skulduggery helps her make the arrangements, lets her use his house for it because she cannot set foot back in Gord— her uncle’s house. Not without expecting him to still be there. This is another name she adds to her list, the list of names she whispers like a prayer before she sleeps. Skulduggery is her constant and the only thing she ever remembers clearly.

She told the others it took all here concentration to focus on just being, on not being utterly erased by Darquesse. She never tells anyone she hung on to the memory of Skulduggery for it, doesn’t tell anyone about _I would and Valkyrie, until the end, always, Valkyrie, sparrows and sunscreen, Valkyrie give me Valkyrie back ValkyrieValkyrieValkyrie._

He is the brightest thing on her mind and the very thing she again clings onto when she can feel her mind slipping through all the open doors. She is not stable and this too, is why she runs. She cannot sleep, cannot dream anything worth dreaming. All she ever sees is nightmares. The way it felt to be lost in her head, and there was no coming back, no tether to ground her. Of the way it felt to look through her own eyes but never be able to stop Darquesse, the way she had been easily brushed aside when she tried saying anything.

There is no prettier way for it; she is running away from her problems, running away from redemption and absolution but goddammit she needs to fix herself first.

Skulduggery gets it. He does not just understand because he lived it and still lives it some days. He chatters her ear off in that annoying, endearing way he has. Hums songs endlessly on the plane when she smacks him to keep his mouth shut for a bit, eventually getting on the nerves of everyone and the plane itself. He helps her set up the security system in the house, berates her for not knowing these things. But for the first week, she wakes up to the smell of blueberry pancakes and that’s ok.

And when he leaves at the end of that week, he does not say goodbye. He kisses her on the cheek, teeth cool on her skin and stands there while she hugs him. His arms curiously twitch at his side until he reaches up and smoothens her hair just before she lets go.

"Until the end."

He taps the facade and smiles at her, kisses her hand and says, “The sparrow flies south for winter.”

The soft bars of Me and Mrs Jones carry away into the night with him.

 

 

v. 

 

Stephanie bites her lip and slams down on the seal etched into the car side. Darquesse seizes and remains still. For the first time, Stephanie watches her face, confused and bewildered. And then, everything changes so fast.

"NO!"

But it does not stop Sanguine from burying the dagger deep into Darquesse’s belly. Her eyes go wide and the seal broken by the tunnelling lets Sanguine’s momentum to pin her to the ground. Stephanie wants to end Darquesse but not like this, not so slowly. A quick end because this is cruel, to watch her bleed out. Valkyrie’s face, exactly like hers turning ashen. Fletcher teleports in Deacon and the other Sensitives too late. And she doesn’t know where Sanguine is gone but he must have known the need to escape Skulduggery’s wrath. Because this is when Darquesse pushes forward Valkyrie to the front, too scared to face her own death.

"Skulduggery," she says, breath sounding so wet. She can’t see him standing at the end of the alley, stock-still. In shock or in anger, Stephanie can’t quite tell. She says it again and he comes to her.

"Valkyrie." She reaches out her hand, tries to touch him.

"It’s so cold, and you’re late.”

“I am always fashionably early,” he lifts her up gently, leaving the knife in.

“As always,” she laughs, a little huff that should not sound so small. Valkyrie always had laughed hard. And why was she already thinking of her in the past tense?

He sits there and talks to her, so softly Stephanie can barely hear a word. Her hand rests on his, folded above the knife.

Maybe if they had planned it a bit more, maybe prepare a little more and Valkyrie would be live and breathe, not bleed out over pavement and bones, Stephanie would not be crying these hot tears, awful tears that she cannot catch a breath around. Maybe Fletcher would not be breathing so harshly into her hair, his grip so tight she thinks his fingers must be bone white. Maybe Skulduggery would have his partner back and she could go back to being normal and unafraid and not sobbing because Valkyrie is only _eighteen_ and dying.

“Let me take her, Skulduggery. To a doctor, I can bring one here too,” Fletcher says, his arms reaching out.

He doesn’t get a response.

"What are you doing? Take them, Deacon, Cassandra all away. Now."

"But, Steph—"

She shakes her head, “No, we… We can’t do anything. Let them be. I’ll wait and call you if. If anything happens.”

She will call him later but right now, she has to watch over Skulduggery. She likes to think Valkyrie would ask that of her. She will always take care of their family, because it is theirs. Valkyrie can never see her family again, and they will never know she died. She can feel the awful sobs coming back.

_Not now, later. Later._

Because she can see the shadows bleeding out of him, curling over his fingers and shoulders. Lord Vile.

She sits and watches over them, watches the Greek tragedy play out.

"You promised, until the end."

"Yes, not very long now. It’s ok, Valkyrie. You can sleep."

Valkyrie dies at the hour’s mark. Stephanie can’t cry at this, there’s nothing left in her to do so. She steps forward because there’s a moment when the shadows whip out, wild and sharp. But Skulduggery pulls them back in, all of them. And there’s only bone and suit, all blood soaked. She steps forward, wanting to do something, anything.

“Don’t,” he says, quietly. He wipes off the red at the corner of her mouth with his sleeve and lifts her up, as if he had done it so many times. (He had.)

“What. What are you going to do?” Valkyrie cannot be buried beside her parents, they can never know she died and she got her wish didn’t she? Valkyrie went away and she gets to keep her family. So why doesn’t this feel ok, it should.

_It doesn’t._

“Take her home,” he starts to walk, then he stops.

“Tell Alice about her, she deserves to know of her real sister,” because of course, the girl who broke the world was the one who fed her, changed dirty diapers and put her to sleep most nights. “It’s the least you could do after, well after.”

Yes, after. After she set yet another crack in the world breaker, after she killed Carol, after she helped kill Valkyrie too. (She did, and she could do nothing to help.) There’s no going back from all of that and maybe the least she can do is tell Alice stories of the sister she should have had, the one who had been brave enough to save the world that she was destined to break. Tell her stories of magic and might, tell her how much Valkyrie loved her.

She watches him walk away, to his Bentley. For some reason, she feels this will be the last time she will ever see him.

Skulduggery Pleasant follows Valkyrie Cain, not long after. Two days later, he slips into the Accelerator quietly and unheralded.

 

 

iv.

 

Pushing the door shut, she walks through the rooms. Hats lying everywhere, and gods does Skulduggery ever wash up? The dishes from last week are still piled up in the sink. And huh, there is her coat.

Skulduggery was not in the house, that was clear. The garage then.

There is a lump slouching in the old car, she never quite got the relation between the skeleton and the rusting car. He only mumbles something about having the seat adjusted right for her by the way of an explanation. Bloody good use, that was. The seat settings were the only thing a car needed to function. A car that lacked a door, the rear window and just about any semblance the engine had of sticking together in one piece.

“Cain.”

“Yes, me. You forgot it was Tuesday, again,” she says. Skulduggery slipped in the seat a little more. “And I see we are back to last names.”

That’s when she sees the black ring on his thumb, shadows twisting through and under the carpals. Little, baby things that scares her all the same.

“Goddammit, Skulduggery.” It would be one of those days again.

“Valkyrie Cain never returns, real or not real?”

“Real.”

“Darquesse is dead, real or not?”

“Real.”

He sighs, then, “I saw her, today you know. The jacket kind of set it off, I suppose.”

Stupid of her to leave it behind, honestly. Skulduggery never really catches the edge between reality and fiction when he gets into one of his headspaces. Her sister’s spectre will always follow him. Just as it will always follow her.

The dead girl, gone 17 years and yet, she haunts them. But they learn to live with it, learn to live past it. Valkyrie Cain died to save the world, died to give her family life. She had died and left so much behind, but that was the way of the dead.

She thinks this is why he stays while she goes. Skulduggery Pleasant only lives _for_ her. Maybe it is because he thinks this a form of penance, which he never had saved her from herself.

She does not think that is the whole reason though. There will never be anyone who remembers Valkyrie half as well as he does. You cannot fully die as long as someone remembers you. And this is the only way Valkyrie will ever truly live, anymore. A half remembered ghost of a girl.

 

 

ii.

 

Here’s how it starts.

Stephanie Edgley never goes to the manor on the hill, never meets the assassin who burns hotter and dies by water. Stephanie Edgley never knows of the fantastic probabilities that live side by side with her in Dublin, in London, in Mumbai. She never meets a tall man, who stands apart from everyone. The fantastic probability that would come to define her life until she eclipsed it. She never knows the skeleton with a voice of velvet.

Skulduggery Pleasant does not find the girl, small, afraid and so very brave. He does not take her to meet vampires, magic and ugly things. He never teaches her about the power at her fingertips, never finds the girl who looks up to him as a hero. There’s no dual lives, no reflection in mirrors that come to life, maybe a little too much. He never meets the girl who was so headstrong and contrary. The seeds for the world destroyer, earth breaker, murderer are not sown. Not by his hands.

 

(In this world, Stephanie Edgley never dies. Not on Skulduggery’s watch.

But all things must come to an end, so will a girl named Stephanie. But before the end, there is the beginning. There are whispers of her family of how different Stephanie is, her uncle Fergus whispering to her aunt about how she is different, so like those disgusting friends of Gordon.

Skulduggery Pleasant never finds salvation and never finds madness. There is no blood spilt for the Faceless Ones and so, they never come. Skulduggery Pleasant only has loneliness and an empty house full of hats and a Bentley that is only meant for one.)

 

This is how it goes.

There is something missing in her life maybe, and she feels quite at odds with her friends and family. She goes to London, studies art and history. Inevitably, she finds hints of another life. Of walls of air and streams of fire, of death and shadows.  So, she leaves London and Dublin, goes to study in India and this is where Valkyrie Cain is born. Untouched by madness, unfettered because there is no loyalty to a hero lost in another dimension. Unanchored by the lack of fear for her family, Valkyrie Cain is born.

 

(The man with the golden eyes passes away, alone in Africa. Death comes calling for her men, and all but one answer in one way or another. The last Dead Men, well, he was only ever the true one of them all.)

 

In this world, Darquesse comes forth. Earlier and unrestrained, she knows no bounds and no reason to not break the world. There’s no cold bones gripping her shoulder and throwing her to safety, no thoughtfully made jacket to cushion blows. There is no sword to defend her while she catches her breath. She is alone and the lone wolf will always die.

Valkyrie Cain dies there, on a little street in New Delhi.

 

(Maybe not completely. Dying is so final, and there are still some parts that remain. Like the part of her that curls up in bath tubs and counts 10 fingers and 10 toes after every battle. The bit of her that always finds herself two steps behind people far too often. There is some part of Darquesse that feels unsettled, as if this is not her own skin and she is on borrowed time.

Darquesse does not know the power of shadows and death here, she knows the elements. This makes her terrible, a terrible god who is not kind nor benevolent at all. She is tempered by fire, dulled by cool whispers of water, unmoving as rock and fey like wind. Inconstant and indomitable, this is how Darquesse shapes the world to her own liking.

 _Soon._ )

 

Skulduggery Pleasant will step aside for Lord Vile three months later. They had learnt to fight monsters with bigger monsters. This was the mistake they made.

The lone wolf will always die, but the pack always survives and remembers.

 

 

vi.

 

Valkyrie Cain is really, really good at punching people. Pretty good at a lot of other things too, like how she can’t read a map at all. Not even if lives were at stake. (Tanith would attest to this, there _had_ been lives at stake and two pastry shops.  And a wandering lion.

“You don’t need a compass to find your way but a map is the thing that defeats you?!” Tanith said as she clambered up the side of the wall to get at the lion. There may or may not have been some experiments on the lion, given that it was behaving like a dragon.

“You know what, Valkyrie Cain defeated by a map. Wait till I tell Ghastly this,” Tanith grinned and jumped back into the fray.)

She never gets the chance though. The remnants happen and Tanith was gone till she was not. But it was too late, because Ghastly was not there anymore. They were so like ships in the night, never to meet again.

“You said we’d be together until the end.”

He nods. She doesn’t know what to say, what to do. _He’s supposed to be there._

“Yes, I did,” he says and she knows what it means. Goodbye and farewell and end of the road Valkyrie. It’s ok Valkyrie, you’ll be fine Valkyrie. She can’t breathe, there’s no air and the room just seems so small now. And what do you do when your best friend walks to his death?

A face flows up the familiar skull, nothing remarkable except for those high cheekbones. He kisses her on the cheek and this is when Valkyrie breaks because he never has done that. And this is it, this is serious and there is no getting out of it. She can feel the cold bones of his teeth and it is unfamiliar, but she grips him hard.  There’s the usual give of his clothes where there should have been mass.

That brings up the old memory of the night, so long ago before the Dead Men went to war. The hug was just as cold as this one, she never did mind it though.

If his arms are a bit tighter than normal, no one else needs to know. She lets him break the hold, lets him step away. Because this is his choice and she will not make it harder. She didn’t expect him to give her the hat and oh god, that is Skulduggery, her best friend, her partner going to his _end._ Because this is not death, he won’t see afterlife, cannot meet his wife again nor his child.

_Nor I either._

“I love you,” she cannot let him walk to his death, not ever knowing how she felt. She can give him (herself) this at least. She will watch him walk, all 23 steps up to the dais because she cannot let him go alone into that night.

Skulduggery never looks back.

This is the last thing she sees of him, suit jacket rumpled and burnt. Gleaming skull and measured steps. Only 13 steps now separate them but she has never felt more apart.

_At least he died doing what he loved._

Her legs give out just then, as the dais starts glowing. He died doing what he loved, _oh god._ She wants to leave, wants to go home. The sparrow flies south for winter. But even sparrows need to know where north is to return home. And this is how she loses her North.

 

 

iii.

 

Alice Edgley never hears her sister read her any story from books. Her tall sister with arms stronger than most boys she knew, who wore a coat as black as their hair and sleeves red like dried blood.

Alice never sees Stephanie read any books for that matter, except for her old Uncle Gordon’s books. The ones that her classmates talk about and the ones that cause her English teachers to go, “Oh Alice, your stories are beautiful! Maybe one day you will become like your uncle.”

She never tells Stephanie this anymore, never tells about school. The one time she did, Stephanie had blanched, pale and white.

“No, Alice. You are your own person and you will tell your own stories. Promise me that at least.”

She will or at least, she will find the stories that belong to her, the ones that never were told. The ones that people would forget just as soon as they heard them, about those little things that go bump in the night, about the times when there was nothing you could do but marvel at beauty because no paints or camera would ever do it justice. Those stories that sent chills up your arms because nothing so eerily wonderful should be real, but they were. Those stories that you just knew were real if only you had a little faith, trust (and maybe a smidge of pixie dust).

There is one story that Stephanie always will tell her. She first hears it when she is all of six years and she finds her big sister furiously rubbing away at a drawing on the mirror.

This is how Stephanie tells the story, to a little girl tucked up in a little bed:

Once there was a girl, a girl just like you. She was small, yes, like you Alice. Twice your age, I think. She was a bored little girl, not sad mind you because there was nothing to be sad about. However, she was not happy either, because there was nothing to be properly happy about. She lived in a little tower of her own, waiting for one day when she could finally leave.

_“Hogwarts sent a letter, Stephie?”_

Not yet, little duck. But soon. You see, there was no way for the owl to find her in the tower. She did leave the tower at times, but no owl came yet to her. Then one day, just a normal day where the only thing not normal was that her favourite uncle was leaving for another kingdom.  So, the girl left the tower to say goodbye to her uncle. It was the last time they would ever see each other again.

_“But Stephie, won’t uncle and princess be sad?”_

A princess? Ok, let’s make her a princess. Her uncle wasn’t sad because he was going to be a king of another big kingdom, you see. The princess was sad because she would not see him again for some time. But she knew he had to go and that was alright. This is when the owl found her. Not such an ordinary day then.

Except this owl was for her uncle and he had already left. And it wasn’t an owl either. It was a wizard.

_“Real wizard? Like Harry?”_

Kind of. This wizard had a message from the uncle, that a bad person was out to get something. Let’s call the bad guy… Red Hand. Red Hand wanted to steal a book, a very, very powerful book that could help him become king. This was very bad because Red Hand would not make a nice king; he was a mean person already.

Red Hand wanted the girl, the princess because he thought she knew where the book was. The wizard did not like this, because he knew Red Hand.

_“Was he mean to wizard?”_

Yes, yes he was very mean. Even worse that the little boys who poke at frogs at your school. That’s why the wizard tried to keep the princess away, but she was not really a princess. She didn’t want to be saved, she wanted to fight herself.

_“Dragons!”_

Dragons and vampires, wee ghosties too. The princess stole the wizard’s hat to make him say yes. The wizard was smart and he knew he would need the princess’ help. So, he let the princess come along. And they did find the book and stopped Red Hand, by magic. The princess liked magic and she wanted to learn more so that she could be a hero. She didn’t want to go back to her boring old tower anymore, you see.

The wizard saw the princess could do magic and that she was very strong. So he decided to teach her. Which was a good thing, because they had a lot more adventures after that.

_“More! More!”_

Not now, Alice. Time for bed ok? I will tell you more next time.

 

Stephanie always tells her stories about the wizard and the princess after that, different ones. Sometimes, there was a beautiful woman in them, called China. Then, there was the lady who climbed walls and ceilings and who taught the princess how to fight, without magic. Stephanie said the lady loved a magical tailor, one who made magical clothes. The tailor was a brother of the wizard, one of eight other brothers.

She talked about so many people that Alice sometimes felt they were so real, as if they were a phone call away. But always, no matter what story it was, the princess and the wizard was always in it.

Alice collects these stories, every single one of them because it is the only constant thing she has of Stephanie. She hardly ever sees her big sister more than once a month. Sometimes, if she is lucky, her sister comes over a week. She never sleeps in their house anymore, never stays over a single night.

She comes visiting at times with inexplicable bruises. There are times when she turns up with singed hair and bloody clothing. The strange thing is there are no cuts to be found on her. It all makes Alice think that she might be a spy (which is pretty cool, if she were to be honest). Stephanie never talks about what she does, not to them at least.

There are stories here that can never be told, not to them at least. Alice does what she does best then, tell the story of her sister. Of the girl with dark hair and darker eyes, of how secrets trail her like shadows. Of double lives and broken bones. Alice writes them all because this is the only way Alice can understand.

Alice tells the story to the other little girls like her, the ones who want princesses who are their own heroes. The ones who want magic and dragons, not just princes and towers.

 

This is how Skulduggery Pleasant used to tell the story:

_My name is Skulduggery. I had a partner, Valkyrie Cain. Not anymore. The Faceless Ones took it away._

He told it to himself, over and over. Until the hallucinations came and his mind fell apart. Until the magic gave way one day and his bones too broke apart.

Valkyrie Cain and Skulduggery Pleasant had a story, a story that was to span centuries. Except it never got finished. They had a song, it just never was sung.

 

 

i.

 

Then there is this, this end that is not quite one.

Valkyrie realised much later, Stephanie Edgley had died twice. The first, so long ago, was back in China’s old library. She died in a little bathroom, an unremarkable death for the true worth of it. Valkyrie Cain was born from that but for that girl she had been (could have been).

Then, the reflection. The girl who had been against the girl who should never have existed. In the end, Stephanie had claimed the name for herself, owned it in a way Valkyrie never could again. But even that, Stephanie had only ever had Valkyrie’s castoffs. Her name, her family, her friends, her life.

Valkyrie would give her this one thing, poor comfort as it was. Stephanie belonged to that girl who should never have been. Was this how Skulduggery had felt when he gave up the crest?

Maybe, maybe not. it will keep for later, when she sees him. She curls her toes into the shag of her bedroom carpet, time to face Danny. She has to finish what she started.

 

“And what do you, if you don’t mind me asking, _is_ really important?”

She remembers being all of 12 and there’s magic and monsters and skeletons and all of the wonder. She thinks she would not trade it in, now when she has had time to work it out. Maybe she might have, five years ago. But it brought her here and now and there’s her best friend waiting outside for her. There’s Ireland to go home too and a family waiting for her, there’s her friends and the work. She has the whole world to see. She’s got all the time in the world.

“Magic,” she says. She smiles at Danny, she might see him again. But she doesn’t think he will ever see her again. He turns away and walks back to the kitchen, just as she releases the latch.

There’s magic and monsters, skeletons and beautiful women and strong men. There’s wonder but now there is knowledge, and maybe it makes her appreciate the wonder even more. It’s ok, she’s home as she throws her arms around Skulduggery.

You can’t make homes out of human beings; she had read somewhere some time ago. Maybe the writer had been wrong, because this ranch had never felt like home. Only a house, a waiting area for a transition.

 “You are a skeleton, Mr Pleasant,” she steps back from him, _home, this is home._

“I see your observation skills have not died after all this time, then,” he adjusts his hat, tilting it at a rakish angle. “Home then, Valkyrie?”

“Maybe, but first.”

She snaps her fingers, a little flame dancing at her fingertips. It is all she can do, the weird magic only allowing for this. But it is familiar and it is more than she could have ever hoped.

“Magic,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> I write about Valduggery because there’s something that is tangible. And that no matter what happens, come hell or high water, they will always be the. Through the end of the world and beyond. Their relationship is something so right that all the songs make sense. You don’t need flesh and blood to feel that deeply. Because this is not love, this is something more.
> 
> Something that means understanding your partner, your other half deeply and profoundly. Something that is painfully deep and still growing and it is scary but you trust them. Something that means building pedestals for them and having them come crashing down your ears because love is blind but _love_ , that well is the steady burn as your world crashes around your ears, the pull of the waves out to sea. You don’t know how to swim but you trust the waves to carry you on when your strength gives out. It is all this and more. It is loving a girl who was destined to destroy the world and loving a man who did nearly destroy it.
> 
> It is being monsters together because it is all you know because even monsters need company. It is being the best of each other even as you become the worst. It is reminding each other of how to be alive and why you should be alive. It is being the sanity and saving grace even as you fall apart.
> 
> Valduggery just is because sparrows fly south for winter, but even sparrows need a north to go home too. And they are north for each other.
> 
>  
> 
>  **Note:** This story is unbetaed, and I am sorry if there are any mistakes. Additional info, section iv is actually Alice except this is one where she takes up magic. Personally, I feel she comes into it much later, aroud 15 ish when she is exploring Gordon's place. The reflection is still around as Valkyrie died post KOTW here. She kinda offed herself in the sense she was very, very reckless and Melancholia actually properly killed her here. Skulduggery took Alice under his wing, or rather Alice forced him too once she found out the whole story.
> 
> I really hope I have done this marvellous fandom justice. This is in a way, a farewell to the series that has defined my teenage years. Thank you to my two beautiful murderous codependent idiots for being there. And thank you to Valkyrie Cain, who will always be the leading light of my life.


End file.
